The Great Gatsby Essay | Essay

The Great Gatsby - "Dishonesty in a Woman Is a Thing You Never Blame Deeply"

Summary: Deals with the novel "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and evaluates a comment from the narrator of the story.

" Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply "

With this statement, Nick comments on his relationship or rather romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He tells the reader that he found out a while ago that Jordan cheated on her first golf tournament to win the first price and that this explains exactly what she was about: dishonesty.

However, he had an affair with her and tells the reader that her dishonesty made no difference to him.

I believe that Nick's statement describes perfectly his inner conflict concerning Jordan. In my opinion, his indifference towards the fact that she was " incurably dishonest " (page 58, line 28) explains exactly why he made that comment.

Nick is a quiet and reflective person and I do not think that he likes to be involved in arguments at all. Jordan however, is very vivacious and passionate and is therefore the complete opposite of Nick - which is precisely what makes her that attractive for him.

He says that he does not care for her dishonesty, but I think he does; he is just not willing to make the effort and tell Jordan about it. He does not dare to really blame her, which he formulates as follows: " I was casually sorry, and then I forgot " (page 59, lines 1/2). It is not likely that he truly forgot that, but I think that he is of the opinion that most of the time people do just not blame women for such a quality in the first place and thus he says that he forgot it, which is much easier than talking about it to Jordan.

Furthermore, he found a way to concentrate completely on the qualities that he likes about her and therefore it is easy for him to justify his affair with her in front of himself.

As a conclusion one can say that Nick's opinion towards Jordan is ambivalent; he is repelled by her dishonesty but attracted to her vivacity and intellect. Yet, the positive part predominates the negative one, and since Nick is not a person who always says frankly what he thinks, he does not blame Jordan for being dishonest.